Elizabeth Blackwell

Woman
Attends Medical School

Old
News

May
and June, 2003

by Michael Fuller

In 1845 Elizabeth Blackwell, a twenty-four-year-old schoolteacher living
in Cincinnati, Ohio, decided that she wanted to become a medical doctor.
At that time, no woman had ever graduated from a medical school in the
United States or western Europe. Most people assumed that a respectable
lady would never consider a career in medicine because all physicians
faced human nudity, deadly diseases, and gruesome scenes.

Blackwell
enjoyed teaching but she wrote in her diary that she felt "the want
of a more engrossing pursuit." The idea of studying medicine came
to her while she was visiting a friend named Mary Donaldson, who had cancer.
"The delicate nature of this painful disease," Blackwell remembered,
"made methods of treatment a constant suffering to her. She once
said to me, 'If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings
would have been spared me.'"

Blackwell agreed with Donaldson that female doctors would be better able
to attend to the medical needs of women. Donaldson suggested that Blackwell
should become a doctor. "You are fond of study, Elizabeth,"
Donaldson said, "you have health, leisure, and a cultivated intelligence.
Why don't you devote these qualities to the service of suffering women?
Why don't you study medicine?"

When Blackwell told some of her friends that she was thinking about applying
to medical school, they scoffed at the idea and told her that she was
being impractical. Her family members, who were active in the movements
to abolish slavery and to win voting rights for women, approved of Blackwell's
desire to study medicine, but they warned her that she might face rejection
and disappointment.

Blackwell believed that men and women were entitled to equal opportunities
in education. Hoping that the admissions committees at some medical schools
would share her view, she decided to go ahead and apply for admission
as a student. In order to save money for medical school she spend the
next year teaching music. When she was not teaching, she read medical
textbooks.

In the summer of 1846 Blackwell applied to several New England medical
schools. She was rejected by all of them. After that, Blackwell recalled,
"The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect
of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed an immense attraction
to me." Besides studying medical texts diligently, Blackwell began
to teach herself Greek. She also wrote letters to several prominent doctors,
stating her goal and asking them if they could help her get into a medical
school.

One of the doctors to whom Blackwell wrote was Joseph Warrington, a well-respected
physician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In his reply to her letter he
advised her that, although he was impressed by the boldness of her aspirations,
he doubted that any medical school in the United States would open its
doors to a female student. He urged her to focus her talents on nursing
instead. But he added that, "if the project be of divine origin and
appointment, will sooner or later be accomplished."

Blackwell found Dr. Warrington's letter encouraging. He was the only
doctor who had taken the time to write back to her. She decided that her
chances of getting into medical school would improve if she moved to Philadelphia,
where Dr. Warrington practiced, and where some of the best medical institutions
and programs in the country were located.

In
May of 1847 Blackwell traveled to Philadelphia and introduced herself
to Dr. Warrington, who she found to be honest and good-natured. Dr. Warrington
immediately liked Blackwell-he was charmed by her earnestness and determination.
He offered her the use of his private medical library and invited her
to attend his medical lectures. The two soon became friends, and Blackwell
began to accompany the doctor on some of his house calls. Dr. Warrington
also offered to write Blackwell a letter of recommendation when she was
ready to apply to more medical schools.

Early that summer Blackwell submitted applications to medical schools
in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

While waiting to hear back from the schools, Blackwell introduced herself
to several other doctors working in Philadelphia. She recalled that one
doctor affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania began to laugh when
she told him that she wanted to study medicine. But another doctor offered
to give her anatomy lessons, which she gladly accepted.

When Blackwell received only rejection letters from the schools to which
she had applied, she became frustrated.

As an alternative to medical school in the United States, several physicians
suggested to Blackwell that she got to France, disguise herself as a man,
and attend medical lectures in Paris. A French woman had recently done
that, and had passed all her courses, but had been denied a diploma after
revealing that she was female.

Blackwell was not willing to disguise herself as a man. She wanted a
medical school to accept her as a female student.

In August, Blackwell mailed out another round of applications to twelve
lesser-known medical schools. She had little hope that she would be accepted
by any of them.

One
of the smaller medical schools to which Blackwell applied was Geneva College
in upstate New York. When Blackwell's application and letter of recommendation
from Dr. Warrington arrived at the school, it was given to the college
dean, Dr. Charles Lee. It was the first time that a woman had applied
to his school. Lee opposed the idea of accepting Blackwell as a student,
but he know that Joseph Warrington was a well-respected physician and
he did not want to displease him.

Convinced that his students would agree with him, the dean decided to
place the onus for rejecting Blackwell onto them, by allowing them to
vote on the matter. He interrupted a morning lecture and read to them
Dr. Warrington's letter on behalf of "a lady anxious to graduate
from one of the eastern city [medical] colleges but refused admittance
by all."

The students did not know whether or not to take Dr. Lee seriously and
many of them suspected that he was playing a practical joke.

Before leaving the lecture hall, Lee instructed the class members to
discuss the matter among themselves and then to hold a vote.

One
medical student, Stephen Smith, recalled, "For a minute or two, after
the departure of the Dean, there was a pause, then the ludicrousness of
the situation seemed to seize the entire class, and a perfect Babel of
talk, laughter, and catcalls followed."

Smith recalled that, when the question of whether to accept Blackwell
was finally put to a vote, "the whole class arose and voted 'Aye'
with waving handkerchiefs, throwing up of hats, and all the manner of
vocal demonstrations."

Blackwell received her letter of acceptance to Geneva College in late
October 1847. She wrote in her journal that she "instantly accepted
the invitation and prepared for the journey" with "an immense
sigh of relief and aspiration of profound gratitude to Providence."

Blackwell left Philadelphia on November 4 and arrived in Geneva, New
York, two days later.

On
Blackwell's first day of school, Smith remembered, "the Dean came
into the classroom, evidently in a state of unusual agitation. The class
took alarm, fearing that some great calamity was about to befall the College.
He stated, with a trembling voice, that the female student
had arrived. With this introduction he opened the door to
the reception room and a lady entered, whom the Dean formally introduced
as Miss Blackwell. She was plainly but neatly dressed in Quaker style,
and carried the usual notebook of the medical student. A hush fell on
the class as if each member had been stricken with paralysis. A death-like
stillness prevailed during the lecture, and only the newly arrived student
took notes."

A few paper darts flew her way, but Blackwell ignored them. She later
wrote that she hoped her "quiet manner would soon stop any nonsense."

After being at the college for a few days, Blackwell was informed that
she would not be allowed to attend classroom dissections. One of the professors
though that it was inappropriate for a woman to be present when he covered
the topic of reproductive systems. Blackwell protested her exclusion and
was finally allowed to attend.

The
male students at Geneva College grew to respect and admire Blackwell,
and some of them became her good friends. But many of the townspeople,
especially the women, treated her unkindly. Blackwell noticed that the
women would draw their skirts aside as she passed them on her daily walks
through town.

On the morning of January 29, 1849, at a ceremony at the Presbyterian
church in Geneva, Blackwell graduated at the top of her class. When the
president of the college, Benjamin Hale, handed Blackwell her diploma,
she said to him, "Sir, by the help of the Most High, it shall be
the effort of my life to shed honor on this diploma." A larger-than-usual
crowd showed up for the graduation ceremony to see Blackwell become the
first woman in the United States to obtain a medical degree.

The dean gave a speech congratulating Blackwell on her diploma and expressed
"admiration at the heroism displayed, and sympathy for the sufferings
voluntarily assumed."

In her autobiography, Blackwell noted that her graduation from medical
school "produced a widespread effect in America. The public press
very generally recorded the event, and expressed a favorable opinion of
it."

Other
women in America applied to medical schools across America, and some of
them were accepted, including Elizabeth Blackwell's sister, Emily Blackwell,
who was granted an M.D. degree in 1854 from Western Reserve Medical College
in Cleveland, Ohio.

After graduating, Elizabeth Blackwell studied obstetrics in Paris, where
she caught an eye infection from a patient and lost sight in her left
eye. She then returned to the United States, where she opened a free clinic
in a New York City slum. Blackwell raised money from local churches and
businesses to support the free medical service. The majority of her patients
were women and children.

In 1857 her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, joined Elizabeth Blackwell at
her clinic in New York. Together they opened a charity hospital, the New
York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. In 1868 they opened the
world's first medical school for women, the Women's Medical College of
the New York Infirmary.

In
1869 Blackwell left the Medical College and Infirmary under the supervision
of her sister and went to England, where she organized the National Health
Society and founded the London School of Medicine for Women. In 1875 Blackwell
was appointed professor of gynecology a the London School of Medicine
for Children. She continued to practice medicine until 1907, when she
retired at the age of eighty-six. She died in Sussex, England three years
later.